Tag: Brain fog

It’s 11:00PM and I’m laying in bed next to a snoring (adorably) Jon, feeling my heart beat in different places on my body in seemingly different rhythms all at once. My hand is pulsing slowly, my chest thumping hard and fast, while my legs seem to throb relentlessly at an unsteady pace.

Things have been weird lately. I live everyday in this relentless fog that seems to cover everything like a blanket and leaves the world with this odd and uncomfortable dream-like feeling. It started with my memory, blurry vision, occasional bouts of confusion. Now, I have days where I can’t seem to focus enough to do simple math. It’s actually rather terrifying.

After a few weeks of complaining my mom suggested I see the concussion specialist I saw for my 6/7 concussions in high school. She told me that it could be an accumulation of previous head injuries finally taking their toll on my body, or quite simply it could be brain fog.

I’m a firm believer in the latter.

If you haven’t ever experienced brain fog, let me just tell you it’s torturous. You wake up every morning groggy and semi-confused about where you are and if your dream has ended. You pull yourself out of bed and slump to the kitchen where you’ll most-likely try to put water in the cat’s food bowl before you realize that something isn’t right and try to direct yourself to the cupboard for an actual cup. If you work, like me (that’s also new), you try to concentrate while you drive yourself to work on what feels like auto-pilot. At work you’re extra tired even though your shift just started, and you sometimes forget things you’re supposed to say to the customers that you service. About two hours into your shift you begin wondering how you’ll be able to drive yourself home, as out of it as you feel. When you get in your car after your shift you automatically get anxious. You feel like you’re asleep behind the wheel even though you’re awake, wide awake even. When you get home you forget to put the car in park before you get out, and then you get mad at yourself for forgetting.

I find myself most days wishing on loose eye lashes and 11:11s for a clearer perspective.

It’s difficult.

It’s especially difficult when you feel like no one takes your symptoms seriously.

And let’s be honest, over half the time they really aren’t taken seriously…

It stresses me out. A lot of stuff has been stressing me out. At the end of May we had to put down one of our puppers, which was incredibly difficult and very sudden. She went from walking to not being able to stand in a matter of two days. When we took her to the vet they told us she was paralyzed from the waist down and that it was spreading but they didn’t know why or what was causing it. So… there’s that. I started a new job that is very social and active compared to how sedentary and isolated I spent my time in previous months. So, that’s been a big change. Mentally and physically I’m still not used to it. I started cognitive rehab for my brain fog/ post-concussion syndrome (whatever) and it is really frustrating. I basically go in once a week and pay $50 for a clean-cut woman with manicured nails in scrubs to tell me I’m doing too much and need to do less every day. Well, I work and go to summer school and have other responsibilities soooooo. I can’t put my life on hold that easily (unfortunately).

Stress takes such a toll on my body. It’s ridiculous how stressed I feel physically when I’m mentally wigging out. This week my personal favorite has been chest pains. Are they cardiac or psychosomatic? The world may never know. I’m sore everywhere every day. Last night I got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and wondered to myself if I had somehow broken my foot in my sleep because it was so incredibly painful to walk on. My stomach officially hates me and has decided that it’ll do as it pleases regardless of how much healthy bacteria I feed it (yogurt is love, yogurt is life), which just makes me nauseas and acidy all day and night. And to top it off, I have nightmares every single night (yikes). I have them so often that they’ve stopped freaking me out and I’ve started to become amused by them.

The night before last I had a vivid dream where I ate rocks and then got violently sick while hanging out with John Boyega (that storm trooper from the last Star Wars movie that goes rogue). Every night it gets weirder. Last night I dreamt that I was actually dreaming an alternate universe where Jon would rather deal with the unfortunate side effects of male birth control (why don’t you exist) than be with me, and was trying to wake myself up in the dream. Which makes no sense whichever way you look at it; birth control doesn’t stop you from being attracted to people, and we had literally just had an important conversation about self-confidence and body image right before bed. Like come on brain. Chill.

Most days I just try to shake off what I’m feeling and turn it into a bad joke, which ends up being pretty unhealthy. Like, “well I’m not dead yet so I guess this is okay.” It’s not funny. I do this at work especially. Sometimes I’ll start to feel a little woozy and I’ll notice my heart rate rising to 130-140 bpm, and I’ll just internally laugh at myself. Like, “lol my stupid heart and weak body.” And it’s not helpful to think those things at all. But, for right now it’s almost an auto-response. And, because my mind is so foggy, I can’t really pinpoint when I started doing it or how. I can’t focus on stopping myself from thinking these things, because my focus in the moment is just getting through the symptoms and dodging awkward conversations about having to leave work early or needing a longer break.

I’m trying to see the bigger picture here.

I’m trying to focus on years from now when I’ll feel happier, healthier, more concentrated. But, it’s difficult to have that mindset when this fog feels so permanent and having a heart with a mind of its own feels so threatening.

For now I’m holding onto my determination to graduate college next Spring. My plan is to adopt a puppy and start my life with a fur-friend (maybe even service doggo) that same week.